


The Second Coming of the Apocalypse

by amerande



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Apocalypse, Aziraphale/Crowley mentioned, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Crowley Was Very Close To God Pre-Fall, One Shot, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Not Omniscient But Sufficiently Nosy, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), The Second Apocalypse (Good Omens), very light shipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-11-02 03:24:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20605970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amerande/pseuds/amerande
Summary: When the second War to End All Wars came, humanity was about as prepared as it had been before—which is to say, they were not. As a whole, the inhabitants of earth were blissfully unaware that anything unusual was about to happen. There were, naturally, some few exceptions. Adam Young, the rest of the Them, Anathema, and Newton had all been given a feeling in one way or another, and they came together in a park outside of Tadfield in the wee hours of a Saturday morning.When they arrived, they found Aziraphale and Crowley waiting for them, standing side-by-side, hands held fast.





	The Second Coming of the Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> Did this need to be published? Probably not. I have a lot of Theological Angst about Crowley.
> 
> TREMENDOUS THANKS to tumblr user letsgomindthestore for the beta read!

**2022 A.D. **

When the second War to End All Wars came, humanity was about as prepared as it had been before—which is to say, they were not. As a whole, the inhabitants of earth were blissfully unaware that anything unusual was about to happen. There were, naturally, some few exceptions. Adam Young, the rest of the Them, Anathema, and Newton had all been given a _ feeling _in one way or another, and they came together in a park outside of Tadfield in the wee hours of a Saturday morning. 

When they arrived, they found Aziraphale and Crowley waiting for them, standing side-by-side, hands held fast. 

“D’you know what’s going on?” asked Adam of nobody in particular. 

“We’ve been living on borrowed time, and now we’re at round two,” said Crowley. 

“What? But we won, didn’t we, three years ago? They’re just going to try it again?” asked Pepper.

“I suspect this will be considerably different,” Aziraphale said. “Not a battle between Heaven and Hell with the Earth as a battlefield, but a battle _ against _the Earth. All of them against all of us.”

“They’ve _ ganged up _?” Adam asked.

“Well we don’t know for sure,” Aziraphale said, “but it seems likely. I think they, er, didn’t take kindly to having their plans derailed last time.” 

“Anybody been manifesting supernatural powers recently?” Brian asked. 

Everyone shook their heads, with the exception of Crowley and Aziraphale—but theirs didn’t quite count, after all. 

“We’re doomed,” Newt said miserably. Although nobody spoke aloud, most of those gathered privately agreed with him. 

“So what—what do we do?” Anathema asked after a few very glum moments, looking between Adam, Crowley, and Aziraphale. 

“Not the foggiest,” Crowley said. 

“Nothing for it but to stand and meet what comes,” Aziraphale added. 

“I’m _ very _ reassured,” Pepper said. Wensleydale looked like he might contradict her, but he was quite suddenly interrupted—just as he opened his mouth and drew in a breath to argue, thunder rumbled in the clear sky. A crack of lightning forked into the earth nearby, and where it had landed stood Gabriel and Beelzebub, not dressed in any facsimile of human fashion but in their full armor. 

“You all again?” Gabriel asked. 

“Ever and always,” Aziraphale said with forced cheer. He stepped slightly to one side such that his hand, holding Crowley’s, was in clear view. 

“A fallen angel and a soft demon? Fitting,” Gabriel said with a sneer. 

“It mattersz not,” Beelzebub said. “The boy is without hisz powerzz, the witch without her omensz.”

“Right. Let’s get the party started, huh?” Gabriel asked. He clapped his hands and two dreadful horns sounded, one bright as an exploding star and the other mournful as the deepest grave. 

The morning sky rolled back and was filled with a flashing splendour as the hosts of Heaven came into view. The fields nearby bubbled with pitch and the armies of damnation pulled themselves from the ground. 

“Thiszzs has been a long time coming,” Beelzebub said with great satisfaction. “I shall enjoy watching you die, traitor.”

Crowley squinted at them for a moment as if considering. Then he held up the hand that wasn’t still casually holding Aziraphale’s and made a rude gesture at the demon lord. 

Beelzebub did not dignify the action with a response.

“What stage of the, um, Inevitable Plan is this?” Adam asked. 

“Nice try, pipsqueak,” Gabriel snapped. “Not gonna work this time. And it’s in_ effable. _ As in you can’t _ eff _it up for us.”

He turned his back on the group of Earth’s defenders. 

“Alright angels!” He shouted with a voice like a klaxxon, hands held high. “This is it! The big one! We’ve been getting ready for this since before the universe was imagined. Let’s show ‘em what we’ve got!”

“Demonszzs,” hissed Beelzebub as the last echoes of Gabriel’s voice faded, “all thissz iz ourzzs. Dessztroy the Earth and everything in it, and we shall come into our own.”

”Your own graves, when we kill you,” Gabriel said conversationally, the mythic echo gone from his voice. 

“That hazz not been decided yet, and shall not be until the _ final _confrontation,” Beelzebub corrected without looking at him. 

The horns sounded again, louder, and every created being in this and every world turned to hear them, although most of them could not have known why. 

The Them shifted closer together. Newton clutched Anathema’s arm. Aziraphale turned and looked at Crowley one last time—and found the demon looking right back at him. 

“Let’s go!” called Gabriel, and the ground shook with the sound of angels and demons pulling their weapons to the ready.

“To the world,” Crowley whispered, giving Aziraphale’s hand a gentle squeeze.

And _ then _—

A single Light appeared, and it coalesced into God. 

Where the Light gathered, the very Earth rioted. A tumult of flowers, grass, and rich soil burst up and twisted everywhere, spreading out from Her feet. All the world’s tides listed towards the south of England as water rushed in from the ocean to greet Her. Time itself held its breath, winding to a halt to save the world from the weight and havoc of Her almighty presence. 

For all of those present, the surroundings ceased to have any meaning. They were standing in the middle of a park in England, near friends, but they were also alone, transported by the presence of the One who called them into being. A calm descended on each of them; not the false, self-delusional calm of hoping that everything will work out okay, but the terrible, awful calm of knowing that the best _ and _the worst—for those were one and the same—was going to happen, no matter what. It was a naked feeling.

It was having all the doors to all the rooms and hallways and closets of one’s being opened, not with any violent force but the gentle turn of a key. It was having the stories you told yourself about your life laid over with an impartial and perfect reckoning and having both read together, with all the differences and exceptions noted. 

Only one of them had had an experience quite like this before, and even that was from a time before time; what’s more, Crowley barely remembered it. 

Each of them understood in that instant that any conversation must be for _ their _ sake. They could lie if they wanted, but She would know—in fact, it seemed as if She knew now whether they would choose to do so—but the act of choosing was, itself, important. It was as close as She could get to playing fair. 

Wensleydale recovered himself enough to speak first. “Are you here to end it all?”

**I AM. **

“I was afraid you’d say that,” he said. 

Her gaze gathered on all of them at once. **WHY ARE YOU ARRAYED AGAINST THE HOST OF HEAVEN?**

“They want to destroy the world,” Pepper said. 

**AND YOU WOULD STOP THEM? **

“Well, yes,” Pepper said. “If I could.”

She spoke to them all with a single word: **WHY?**

After a moment, Adam stepped forward and squinted against Her brilliance. “My mum always told me that once you give someone a thing, it’s theirs. You don’t get to take gifts back once you’ve given them away. Seems to me this is like that. You gave us this world, you gave us lives. Now you’re mad about what we’ve done with them? Doesn’t seem right.”

Pepper came to stand next to him. “Aren’t we just what you made us? You may not be pleased with what we’ve chosen for ourselves, but just because we don’t live up to what you wanted doesn’t mean we don’t have value.”

“We’ve already started doing better,” Brian chimed in. 

“Yeah,” said Anathema. “Starting when Adam reset the world. He cleaned up the oceans. We’re investing in more clean energy. People are _ learning. _”

“Besides which, I’ve now got a girlfriend and a job I’ve kept for more than a month,” said Newt. “It’s good and...I don’t want to lose it.”

“Actually, I think we _ have _ done some rubbish stuff as a planet but I think we’ve done some good things, too. We’ve got science now and that plant-based meat so vegans can have hamburgers, and more laws about how to take care of people and the like,” added Wensleydale. 

**YOU SPEAK WELL FOR YOURSELVES**, God said after a time. 

The humans let out a collective sigh, then turned to look at one another, unsure what that meant. 

God turned Her attention to the angel. 

**MY AZIRAPHALE. **

“Almighty,” he choked. Well, he _ had _asked three years ago for a chance to speak directly to the highest authority. It seemed his opportunity had arrived.

**GABRIEL CALLS YOU FALLEN**, She said. 

“I rather think that Gabriel and I disagree on some fundamental points of theology,” he said as delicately as he was able. 

**THEOLOGY? **

“It’s a human term,” he explained. “For the study of...You. And what You mean for the rest of us.” 

Silence.

“Not what You meant, of course,” Aziraphale said apologetically. “You see, I think Gabriel said that because he believes that in working against the orders _ he _ was working under, I must have been doing the wrong thing. Which, you know, an angel can’t do...at least not if they’re going to _ stay _an angel.” 

Silence. 

“It’s just that I thought that maybe orders calling for the destruction of the world and all the life in it might be worth...questioning.” He paused a moment, then continued in a rush: “And You _ did _promise not to destroy all life again.”

**THROUGH FLOOD. **

“What,” asked Aziraphale, “would be the point if it _ only _ meant by flooding? That’s not a covenant, it’s a threat! I must believe—I _ choose _ to believe—in the spirit of the promise.”

**YOU WOULD INTERCEDE FOR THEM?**

“I would, “ he said. “The way I see it...there’s no amount of love, of goodness, that’s too small to be worth saving. Each one of them, somewhere, has that spark of You in them still. Has that love.”

**AND HIM ALSO? **She asked, looking to Crowley, and Aziraphale’s heart was almost too full to speak. 

“Oh, him more than any other. Not just a spark, Your Grace. A bonfire.”

She spoke again, and this time it was to Aziraphale alone. 

**YOU WOULD DIM YOUR LIGHT, RISK YOUR BLESSING—FOR HIM?**

“I—yes, without question. I suppose I already have, really, and I’d make that choice again now if I could. Even if it meant today were my last.” 

**VERY WELL**, She said with finality, and Aziraphale knew the others could hear once again. 

And She turned to Crowley, who visibly tensed as he steeled his heart against Her recrimination. 

**BELOVED**, She said, and he fell down and wept.

Crowley _ wept. _Laid bare before the sight of the Mother who made him and rejected him, who turned Her face from him and then spoke of love after a separation longer than the life of the whole universe, he came apart.

He lay prostrate on the rioting lawn, hands reaching out as if to touch the very hem of Her robe. 

**CROWLEY, TURN YOUR FACE FROM ME NO MORE** She said at length, and he looked up at Her from where he had fallen to the grass. 

He looked incensed. 

“Turn _ my _ face—from You?” He took Aziraphale’s outstretched hand, hauled himself to his feet, and stumbled forward. “God, I called out! Again and again and _ again _I cried for you, begged you, and heard nothing!”

The humans shrank back as Crowley worked himself into a proper shout. Even Aziraphale had gone paler than usual, although he still held onto the demon’s hand from a step behind him. 

“Who’s ferrying Your messages these days, anyway, Michael? Michael, who hates the humans? How could she not—Your special favorites, Your pets who You showered so much attention on that You didn’t even notice Your chosen servants trying to _ destroy Aziraphale _ because he loved them. You think she’d have passed along my calls, do You?” 

**PEACE**, God said. 

“Tell that to that bloody lot,” Crowley said with a gesture to the massed demonic and angelic forces, all of whom looked confused and not a little wary of the goings-on in the centre of the park. 

To everyone’s tremendous surprise—none more than Crowley’s, who looked for a moment as if he expected to become an ex-creation—God smiled at him. 

**HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN? **She asked. 

“We didn’t have time back then,” Crowley said flatly. 

**YOU HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED INSIDE TIME, ALTHOUGH IT MIGHT NOT BE AS HUMANS MEASURE IT. **

“Eons, then,” said Crowley. As he spoke, a fragment of human philosophizing came to mind: that to God, all times are as “Now.” No sooner had the thought occurred to him than he felt the whole expanse of the universe contract and all of time become an instant, as if She were talking to him here at the second apocalypse _ and also _ casting him from grace _ and also _ blessing him with his name, greeting him for the first time, delighting in the galaxies he created as part of Her great working _ and also _ hearing his questions as they rose up like smoke to find Her; every moment where they intersected was laid over the other like film with too many exposures, no one moment an after-image, no one time the only _ present _. He staggered, and Aziraphale caught him. 

“Nobody was taking Your messages,” he said. It had felt clear, in that brief flash of perspective, that when he had spoken to Her, even down here on Earth, She had been with him.

**I ALWAYS HEAR YOU.**

“Then why this, why _ nothing _?” 

**YOU** (and he understood that she meant “created beings”) **NEEDED A CHANCE ON YOUR OWN, TO LET YOUR CHOICES PROGRESS. TO LEARN BEFORE BEING HELD TO ACCOUNT. **He caught the impression of pounding, torrential rain as people ran desperately for higher ground; the smell of brimstone and two cities falling to rubble; the wails of mothers as their firstborn children died all at once; the dying gasps of two men and one Son of God on three crosses. She was the source of all consequence and had stepped outside of the reality She created to spare it from the repercussive force that was Her nature.

“But You’ve returned, now,” Aziraphale whispered. 

**YES. **

“To end thisz world?” asked Beelzebub. 

“To cast all the demons back into the lake of sulphur and clamp the lid on?” asked Gabriel. 

**TO MAKE A MENDING. **

Gabriel and Beelzebub gaped at her. For that matter, so did Crowley and Aziraphale.

“But—the war! What about the war?” asked Gabriel. 

**I NEVER CALLED YOU TO WAR. **

Gabriel sputtered. 

**YOU MADE A CHOICE**, God said to him, **TO ATTEMPT TO DESTROY THE HUMANS YOU WERE MEANT TO GUIDE, TO END THIS WORLD BEFORE ITS TIME. CHOOSE NOW TO DO BETTER, IF YOU WILL. **

Her gaze came to rest on the Them. **WHAT WOULD YOU ASK FOR? **

“Non-interference,” Pepper said quickly. 

God laughed. There was nothing condescending or shaming about it; it was a bright peal of joy and delight. 

**ALL EXISTENCE IS INTERFERENCE**, She said gently. 

“Well, what about an end to the subterfuge,” Aziraphale suggested. “No more demons whispering into their minds—“

“Or angelssz sowing _ belief _,” Beelzebub interjected. 

“Yes, very well,” said Crowley, taking up Aziraphale’s idea. “Point is—no more misdirection. Not a ceasefire, but at least allow the humans to make their own decisions without any tripwires or legs up.”

“And what about us?” called an angel at the front of the ranks who was close enough to hear the goings-on. 

“What is it you’ve been doing for the last few millennia?” Crowley asked. “Anything useful?” 

No response was forthcoming. God turned to look at the angel who had spoken. 

**ANGELS, YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN YOURSELVES AND** **ME**,She said, and all those standing in the park saw a ripple run through the shining host as individual angels quailed. She did not shout, and Her voice did not grow louder, but it was clearly apparent that each and every angel and demon could now hear Her as clearly as if they were standing right at Her feet. 

**YOUR NATURE IS NOT UNCHANGING. YOUR KNOWLEDGE IS NOT PERFECT. NOR YOURS, WHO CONSIDER YOURSELVES DEMONS. YOU ARE ALL CREATURES OF DICHOTOMY AND OF CHOICE. HAD YOU FORGOTTEN?** She asked.

Many of the beings shifted uncomfortably. Some of the angels had a guilty look about them, and on the face of more than one demon, an impossible hope began to dawn. 

“Sorry,” said Wensleydale, “but what does that actually mean?” 

**YOU EXIST WITHIN TIME, AND UNTIL TIME HAS ENDED, YOUR CHOICES ARE NOT DONE** , God responded. **THE SAME IS TRUE FOR ALL CREATED BEINGS.**

Aziraphale felt Crowley’s hand trembling. 

God turned once again to face the armies.

**LUCIFER THOUGHT TO RAISE HIMSELF AS OPPOSITION TO ME. HE HAS PRESENTED ALL OF YOU ANGEL STOCK WITH THE ILLUSION OF FINAL CHOICES. I GIVE THIS BACK TO YOU, AND TO ALL THE PEOPLES OF THIS AND EVERY WORLD, ALTHOUGH I NEVER TOOK IT AWAY: THERE IS NOT ONE CHOICE YOU MUST MAKE, BUT EVERY CHOICE. **

God continued: **YOUR NATURE IS NOT SO DIFFERENT FROM THAT OF THE HUMANS. YOUR ACTIONS WILL ALWAYS HAVE CONSEQUENCES, BUT THEY DO NOT BIND YOU TO ANY ONE PATH. ALL THOSE WHO STRIVE FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS SHALL FIND THEIR WAY TO IT, IN TIME. **

The air trembled with the rumble of ten thousand murmured conversations as angels and demons digested this revelation. 

**LEAVE THIS PLACE IN PEACE**,She bade them, and they all did. Abyssal pitch soaked back into the earth, the radiance of the sky faded into the humdrum glimmer of pre-dawn. 

**CROWLEY** , She said. He felt a veil of closeness pull around them and knew that Her words were for him alone. **SPEAK YOUR MIND. **

“Last time I did that to You, I got turned into a snake,” he said. 

**YOU ARE MORE RESILIENT NOW. **

“Oh, that was all meant to be character-building, was it?” 

**IT WAS NOT ** ** _MEANT _ ** **TO BE ANYTHING. IT WAS A NATURAL CONSEQUENCE. **

“And who decided that consequence, pray tell?” 

**I DO NOT DECIDE. I ** ** _AM_ ** **. **

“Right. So...now what?” he asked. “You step back out of the universe, the angels and demons leave humans alone for a while, and...what?” 

**AND THEY CONTINUE TO LEARN AND GROW. **

“You really trust that Beelzebub and Gabriel and all that lot are going to keep their hands to themselves?” 

**IF THEY CANNOT, YOU AND AZIRAPHALE WILL STOP THEM. **

“We’ll _ what _?!” 

**DO WHAT YOUR KIN HAVE CHOSEN NOT TO. GUARD THIS EARTH YOU LOVE SO WELL. **

“You want me to guard the earth from angels and demons.” 

**YES. **

“I’m fairly certain I don’t report into you,” Crowley said. God laughed.

**NO CHARGE OR BOND IS LAID UPON YOU, BY MYSELF OR ANY OTHER**, She said. 

“Is it really as easy as that? ‘Sorry Lucifer, God says you don’t have any bond on me, toodle-loo’?” 

**NOT EASY, NO. BUT AS SIMPLE. **

“And You’re not worried about the swarms of demons that will crawl over this world to find me if I do that?” 

**A KIND OF REVOLUTION IS SPREADING, EVEN NOW, IN HEAVEN AND IN HELL**,She said, and he had at once a strong impression of Heaven’s echoing white foyer filled with debating angels and flying paperwork as a harried-looking upper staff tried to marshal answers to thousands of questions all at once. **YOU WILL HAVE TIME BEFORE THEY REGROUP—IF INDEED THEY DO SO AT ALL. **

“There aren’t _ that _many demons who are going to give over just because they’ve been told they can.” 

**YOU MAY BE SURPRISED**, She said. 

“But never you, eh?”

She laughed again. **NO. **

A moment passed.

“Oh, very well,” he said with a gusty sigh. “I’ll talk it over with the angel. Silly me, thinking we were about due for retirement.” 

  


**Author's Note:**

> Some notes I felt worth addressing in this fever-dream of a oneshot:
> 
>   * I like the fanon idea of Crowley having been very close to God pre-Fall. I choose to think that 1) Aziraphale came into being after the first Fall, and 2) that after that Fall, it was much less common for angels to have direct contact with God. 
>   * The chief resolution to a lot of the theological questions I have re: GO worldbuilding is God telling all the angels and demons that they essentially still have access to self-determination. How does that square with the Fall and the idea that these beings have spent eons thinking they _must_ be on opposing sides? God had to be positioned as more of a force of pure consequence rather than Someone who willfully chose to cast Lucifer et al out when they rebelled. 
>   * I tagged this as "crack" because at some point I had to stop pretending this was about anything other than my own theological hangups and desperate desire for a reunion between Crowley and the Almighty. 
>   * “How is God both present at all times AND outside of the universe for some of them?” Reality is a transparent six-sided cube full of air molecules (moments), the motion of which God can rewind, fast-forward, and pause; She can also elect to disassemble the cube, lay it flat, and interact with the molecules which were inside it. In short: it’s ineffable.
>   * I'll try to update this with others as I think of them
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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